Goose Sauce, Meet Gander Sauce
On Sunday’s Washington Post Op-Ed page, Debora Spar, President of Barnard College, has this to say:
…[A]s the financial debacle unfolds, I can’t help noticing that all the perpetrators of the greatest economic mess in eight decades are, well, men. …
One might argue, of course, that the preponderance of men behaving badly on Wall Street is just a mathematical corollary of the preponderance of men doing anything on Wall Street. But the truth is more complicated. …
Clearly, some greater force is at work here, something more than the traditional clubbiness of Wall Street or the obstacles that still confront women juggling work and family. It may be that women perceive and act on risk in subtly different ways; that they don’t, as a general rule, embrace the kind of massively aggressive behavior that brought us a Dow of 14,000 and then, seemingly overnight, a crash of epic proportions. Whether it be from a protectiveness born of biology or a reticence imposed by social norms, women may be less inclined than men to place the kind of bets that can get them in real trouble. …
We don’t yet know why women respond differently to danger signals — and earlier, it appears — than men. We don’t know why women either shy away, or are effectively banned, from businesses that thrive on risk. One possibility, explored in a fascinating study published last year by John Coates and Joe Herbert of Cambridge University, is that women simply don’t have the testosterone for it; on the trading floor, they deduced, higher profits literally correlate with higher levels of the male hormone. …
Whatever the reason, the experience of the past year suggests that we desperately need to bring more women into leadership positions on Wall Street, in politics, in regulatory bodies and in American life generally.
Four years ago, Lawrence Summers, then President of Harvard University, famously suggested that three “broad hypotheses” may account for the dearth of women in leading science and engineering jobs:
One is what I would call the…high-powered job hypothesis,” Summers said. “The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search.
And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described.
Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, walked out on Summers’s talk, saying later that if she hadn’t left, ‘‘I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.” Another attendee, Denice D. Denton, chancellor designate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that she was “deeply offended”.
These were not isolated reactions among academics. The UC Board of Regents disinvited him from a presentation, after Maureen Stanton, an evolution professor at UC Davis, was “stunned and appalled” when she learned of Summers’ upcoming speech and circulated a petition to have his invitation withdrawn. Ultimately, in part because of these comments, he was fired.
Stanley Fish, like many, argued that Summers was wrong to make these comments because he was not simply a faculty member, but also an administrator.
Beyond academia, the primordial blogosphere of 2005 couldn’t decide whether Summers should be given a show trial or not before execution.
It seems to me that both Spar and Summers have publicly speculated that the lack of women in a highly competitive field is caused by physical differences between the sexes in combination with social factors. If anything, Summers’s remarks are more tentative and restrained than Spar’s. Both are (or were) Presidents of leading institutions of higher learning. Summers made his remarks in a somewhat informal live academic discussion among peers that included direct challenge and back-and-forth. Spar published her remarks on the Op-Ed page of one of the three or four most influential newspapers in America.
So, presumably all of those who critcized the Summers talk will promulgate at least equally vehement reactions to Spar’s article – right?
Zoe Cruz? Held out for an extra 200MM and thus scuppered a deal which would have saved Stanleys maybe 15bn of losses?
— sammler · Jan 5, 02:29 PM · #
Jim, I generally enjoy reading your posts, but your assertion here is simply preposterous. Anyone who has spent any time in academia and finance (such as myself) can tell you that the pressures and attitudes in the two worlds are ENTIRELY different. The daily life of a day-trader, hedge fund manager, or i-banker is simply driven by coffee and testosterone: this is a world where once “strippers and coke” was a common Friday afternoon feature, where trader desks will occasionally have bond analysis running in one window and pornography in the other (just get on a bond auction conference call to see the testosterone in action). Academia may have a great deal of competition, but almost all of it is driven by legitimate pursuit of truth rather than financial gain, and the obsessiveness is one of over-investment of time rather than dramatic bursts of adrenaline. Have you read any accounts of the daily life of academics even remotely akin to the world described, in say Liar’s Poker?
At least try to be a little self-critical before making such poorly conceived posts.
— KV · Jan 5, 02:32 PM · #
KV:
Thanks for the compliment and the comment.
My point wasn’t that the two worlds are close to identical, or even that I agree or disagree with either Summers or Spar.
It was that both arguments are speculations that bioloical differences between the sexes have led to different levels of recognized accomplishment in some environment, based on evidence that is, to put it mildly, inconclusive. Why was it wrong for one person to do this and not the other?
— Jim Manzi · Jan 5, 03:10 PM · #
I think the difference between their comments is Summers’s second possiblity; that there aren’t as many really smart women. I’ve discussed these comments with some women, and those who were offended usually reacted harshly to this line of speculation.
— Zak · Jan 5, 03:39 PM · #
Where I live, I see lots of women who live in big houses, drive expensive cars, wear expensive clothes, and buy gourmet groceries. To what extent was the credit crisis driven by their poor economic decisions?
— womenshoppingbadly · Jan 5, 04:00 PM · #
Zak:
Summers speculates that women lack “apptitude” for science and engineering.
Spar speculates that biochemistry indicates that women lack “aggression”, and that this characteristic is positively correlated (and technically, she has actually speculated that this is a causal raltionship) for trading.
I get that people may (and, in fact, obviously will) react differently to these two statements. What is the rational basis for this difference? That people care more about aptitude for science than trading? If so, is this a valid basis for excluding a topic from academic conversation.
(By the way, if it’s not clear, I mean these as actual questions, not snark.)
— Jim Manzi · Jan 5, 04:03 PM · #
I would imagine the different reactions are that we have a bias towards wanting to think all individuals are equally capable (something embedded in the american dream that everyone can make it if they try hard enough), though perhaps are less sensitive to the charge that all individuals are equally ‘un-greedy’ (while she doesn’t say greed, her notion of risk-taking is couched in a bit of an argument with a bit more of a moral tint).
To put it is another way… how would people react to these two statements:
Women aren’t in academia because they are not smart enough
Men are in financial trouble because they are overly risky.
The second has moral overtones which line up with people’s desire to find the scapegoat for the current crisis, the first clearly contradicts an equality mindset which is deeply embedded in the American psyche (even though stated properly, both are interesting scientific questions)
— Peter Boumgarden · Jan 5, 04:17 PM · #
People would find your second statement offensive if it were “women don’t make as much money because they don’t take enough risks.”
— Adam Greenwood · Jan 5, 04:30 PM · #
Isn’t the difference kind of obvious, Jim?
1) Spar is not opining about the suitability of people she employs to perform their jobs. (Yes, her belief that there are biological differences may have implications for Barnard’s hiring decisions, but the relationship hasn’t been stated as directly);
2) Spar is a woman, Summers is a man;
3) Spar is hypothesizing that there are biological or social differences that would mean that more women should be hired in financial positions, while Summers’ hypothesis would tend to justify the status quo, or even move away from some diversity pressures in hiring.
Those are mostly political rather than scientific or logical distinctions, but they seem fairly apparent, IMHO.
— J Mann · Jan 5, 04:31 PM · #
Was offense taken because an assertion of difference was made, or because an implication of inferiority (as a consequence of the difference) was made?
Off the cuff, I think issue could have been taken with Summers’ statement because “different availability of aptitude” could have been interpreted as implying having inferior aptitudes: they seldom lead to success in the fields of science and engineering.
Spar is saying women can draw on aptitudes at once different and superior: a wisdom that avoids foolhardy risk.
— Julana · Jan 5, 04:34 PM · #
I don’t quite disagree with you here, Jim, but to some of the commenters let me point out the fact that Summers would have weathered this storm if he hadn’t spent his entire tenure as president of Harvard deliberately and methodically alienating everyone whose support he needed for the office. No one would praise someone who did that if they worked in private enterprise, but because he was seen as thumbing his nose at always-reviled professors, he gets a pass on it. A university president is a gladhander and negotiator; that’s not part of the job, it is the job, and Larry Summers was horrid at it, and that’s why he was let go.
— Freddie · Jan 5, 04:36 PM · #
Both the comment by Summers and the comment by Spar are foolish, but I don’t think that there would be anything sinister to be read from the situation if no liberal academics condemn Spar. Summers’s comment was insulting (as said above by Zak) while Spar’s praises women, sort of. Sure, they’re using the same type of reasoning, but it’s probably too much to ask for people to take offense from a compliment no matter how wrong-headed it is. Also, I don’t know Spar’s situation, but from what I understand Summers was quite unpopular at Harvard. Professors there were ready to be angry at him and raise a fuss if he said anything stupid, and he of course obliged. Spar may have a better relationship with her faculty, making them more willing to see this op-ed piece as a thought experiment, or perhaps just more likely to keep their criticisms out of the press.
— Sunny · Jan 5, 04:38 PM · #
Zoe Cruz, president and second in command at Morgan Stanley until Nov 2007 was a woman. She was sacked for her role in giving a go ahead to a massive purchase of subprime mortgages (in early 2007, when the handwriting was already on the wall) that cost the usually cautious Morgan Stanley billions when the meltdown started later that year.
— JonF · Jan 5, 04:44 PM · #
thats a good point adam, and that rephrasing of the second comment would make it violate the equality maxim again.
I wonder if J. Haidt’s work on moral foundations (which ones are violated) could explain the differences in reactions (the rephrasing makes it also against fairness, like the first… http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php)
— Peter Boumgarden · Jan 5, 04:45 PM · #
I think it matters that aptitude for Math/Science/Engineering academic professions corresponds more to intelligence, while aptitude for finance corresponds to behavioral predispositions. As a practical matter, the stereotype, “women aren’t super-geniuses” is more offensive to women than they stereotype “men are very aggressive, women aren’t” is to either men or women.
— Zak · Jan 5, 05:22 PM · #
Zak:
I fully agree. (although I will note that Spar’s statement was much closer to something like “Men are so excessively aggressive that they have brought on a huge economic crisis, so we need more women in leadership positions thoughout society.”)
But, suppose “women”, or “people from towns starting with the letter R”, or any other group of people, found the statement that “the sky is blue” offensive? Would that make it wrong to say the sky is blue? – or more precisely, while it might be prudent to recognize this as a practical reality when making decisions, shouldn’t we also find it hypocritical for this group to arbitrarily decide who gets to say that the sky is blue, depending upon mood, material self-interest or any other criterion, and be beyond challenge to ground this reaction in agreed-upon principles?
— Jim Manzi · Jan 5, 05:38 PM · #
good point Jim
I think they are both valid scientific questions to study and answer, even if neither supports the proposed hypothesis. I would think that both contexts (faculty meeting, op-ed) are at relatively least valid places to raise these kind of questions, though they should be stated with some humility to the extent that they are not empirically supported.
pb
— Peter Boumgarden · Jan 5, 05:47 PM · #
Jim, I’m mostly in agreement with you, but at the same time, I think it’s sensible to recognize that, for example, Chris Rock can make jokes I can’t. Recognizing not just the offense it might cause but also the women it might discourage or alienate, Summers should have employed better disclaimers on what he said, in my opinion, pointing out that, as Peter said, there is little empirical support right now.
— Zak · Jan 5, 07:22 PM · #
Zak:
I agree entirely. Summers was, at a minimum, imprudent to make the remarks he made in that venue at that time. I’ve never defended him for this. In fact, in some commets back-and-forth with Steve Sailer on one of my geneteics posts here at TAS, I pointedly refused to do so.
Separately, Spar was not imprudent to write the Op_ed that she did. What is so striking (to me, at least) is that these are correct prudential calculations.
— Jim Manzi · Jan 5, 07:57 PM · #
“What is so striking (to me, at least) is that these are correct prudential calculations.”
Also remember that, in the political consciousness of Madoff and Wall Street bailouts, right now saying that women don’t make good traders is a good thing, akin to saying women aren’t cut out for being paid assassins or arsonists. Our scientists didn’t destroy the global financial system – fair or unfair, everyone loves scientists, and nobody is liking the bankers.
— rortybomb · Jan 5, 08:17 PM · #
The Larry Summers brouhaha has disappeared down the Media Memory Hole because President Obama, the Infallible One, has blessed Larry, so all is forgotten.
— Steve Sailer · Jan 5, 08:53 PM · #
Summers was explaining away gender discrepancy—which some might attribute to academic discrimination—by offering his three “broad hypotheses” as a rival explanation. Spar may have been speaking for Barnard, but Summers was making excuses for Harvard.
— Consumatopia · Jan 8, 05:02 AM · #